


A Good Day

by down



Category: Magic Knight Rayearth
Genre: Gen, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/down/pseuds/down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ferio and Hikaru and the Forest of Silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Day

**Author's Note:**

> Originally day three of my self-imposed 12 days of christmas challenge~ 
> 
> Ferio being reflective on patrol with Hikaru in the Forest of Silence. Background Fuu/Ferio. Rating's because general audiences didn't feel quite right with the demon!killing in this, for all it's inexplicit?

oOo

Ferio swung his sword one last time, and the demon-bird facing him shrieked and fell back, finally dying. He looked about, but the only other living thing in sight was Hikaru, and she was stood carefully cleaning her sword off; he propped his own against the closest tree, and slumped down beside it to catch his breath.

It had been a while since he had been let out on patrol; the nightmares and fears of Cephirans still called monsters into being in this reborn Cephiro; it was the job of the Guards to keep them in check and protect the people and the spirits from them, and Ferio had been a member of the Guard since he returned to the Castle. But while he was being used as a figurehead, someone linked to Emeraude for the people of Cephiro to recognise, no one had let him out to do the only actual _job_ he was qualified for, really. 

(Well. He also made a pretty good travelling performer, but that didn’t feel so helpful.) 

Only now, with the Council well established, was he being assigned anything beyond training duties. LaFarga had tried to talk him into a couple of turns at village border patrols before taking on anything more dangerous, as it had been so long; Ferio had stared him down until he sighed, and let him sign up for the next tour through the Forest of Silence. 

At least LaFarga was doing it because he was genuinely worried. And Ferio was ready to admit he was a little out of practise. He was aching, now, in ways he hadn’t felt for many years – ways which said he was going to hate moving about tomorrow. But he felt real, in ways he had missed, walking about the castle in gratuitous armour with people calling him ‘Prince’. Just being family to the Pillar was no need for a courtesy title, to his mind. He had done nothing to support her the way he should. 

He had run. 

Back then, fighting to keep the monster population at least a little under control was all he had been able to do; getting lost looking for Eterna made a decent cover for spending his time deep in the heart of the forest. 

Now, he and Hikaru – who had decided it sounded like fun and invited herself along (partially encouraged, he suspected, by Fuu, who might or might not have asked her to keep an eye on Ferio while they were out there) instead of staying at the Castle to revise for some oncoming exams with the other knights – had managed to get split off from the rest of their patrol in a fight with a nest of the bird-creatures which had lasted nearly an hour. They could be miles away by now, and tracking in the Forest was always a difficult prospect. Ah, well. 

The armour they had forced on him – more practical than the stuff he wore as Prince, at least, but a new uniform was always uncomfortable, and he never had really liked the stuff – was digging into his back. He wriggled, sighed, and used one sleeve to rub the sweat from his face. When he opened his eyes again, Hikaru was smiling down at him, practically glowing. She never liked killing things, but now she could sense that the demons were not… living creatures, precisely, but malevolent energy given form by panicked willing away in the throes of a nightmare. 

“Are you okay?” She asked, first, and he nodded. 

“Yeah, I’m good. You?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“…Good fight, that.” 

She grinned, and her sword cascaded back into her gauntlet as she dropped down onto the dirt beside him. The tree was plenty big enough to support two people and one dirty sword, though the bark was rather too rough to be comfortable behind their heads. “Yes. …Are we lost?” 

She didn’t sound particularly worried, just curious. Ferio had to laugh. Some places had changed, after the rebuilding. 

The Forest of Silence was far too stubborn to let the a little thing like its entire de-and-reconstruction change it. 

“No. I know this place like the back of my hand, we’re fine. I don’t know where the others got to, though. We’ll have to get back on the path the Captain planned, hopefully _they_ won’t get lost.” 

“…Fuu was right, then.” Hikaru said, thoughtfully, and Ferio turned his head to blink at her. 

“That you should come with me?” 

“That too.” Hikaru was older, but her smile no less cheerful. Ferio decided not to ask. If Fuu wanted to ask him about the lies he’d told, that time (and that he hadn’t been lost was the least of them)… well, he would tell her. She let his memories of back then lie still, for the most part, and he loved her for that gentleness, for the way that those things were a part of them and their relationship, their history, but did not get in the way of what was between them now. 

Ferio stretched, wincing when his shoulders clicked, then pulled the water bottle from his belt and offered it to Hikaru. “Here. We’ve earned a break before we go hunting our friends.” 

“Thanks, Ferio.” She stretched, too, and sat happily drinking while Ferio cleaned his sword off, examining the edge for any new nicks. Presea tried to grab it from him every time she saw it, wanting to smooth that long curved edge again; Ferio refused every time. He liked the history written into the blade, liked sharpening it by hand even if the deeper notches refused to come out that way. 

It probably said something deep about his attitude to life, but Ferio didn’t care. It felt more real this way. Real like the sweat still trickling down his back, the ache in his legs, and the calluses on his hands. 

Real like the weight of Fuu’s hand on his own, when he had never expected the Magic Knights to be anything more than a legend or a distant nightmare to him. 

Ferio took his water bottle back and drank before clasping it to his belt again, and pushing to his feet. He offered his hand to the just-as-improbable girl beside him, who certainly didn’t need the help, but accepted it anyway. Fuu was too wise for anyone, he thought, ruefully. He would have resented anyone else being sent out to watch over him – but Hikaru was so honest in her dedication to the task at hand and her trust in Ferio to do what he could that resentment was impossible. 

Besides, she was a good partner in a fight. 

“Let’s get back before anyone panics and tells Fuu they’ve lost the Prince and the Knight of Fire.” He said, with a grin, and shouldered his sword. The sunlight glinted through the trees above, and there wasn’t a demon left alive in this part of the Forest. 

It was a good day. 

oOo


End file.
